What does this suggestion change/add/remove:
Improves Mastery or at least changes it to have a deeper meaning within MRP. Realistically, we need a new system or to change the current system to allow for a real meaningful reason to build up XP in your mastery tree to make it some what beneficial to Grind the current content that we have in the server as well as looks at the new/previous player experience and how it can be improved (ranks, meanings and improvements)
As it stands right now, you join the server, get trained, join the USSR Infantry/NATO Infantry regiments and then... that's it. There realistically is no progressive gain or incentive for new players to continue to play the server UNLESS there's a war active as they join, in which they likely won't be trained because that's what it's become. The fix ISNT making sure they're being trained during war, it's giving them something to progress towards even when war isn't active, or there's not people on the server.
Our player retention is fucking abysmal to be quite honest. Using Battlemetrics, we received a total of around 140 new players between October 6th and October 21st. Despite it being high, that number may be slightly off, if not completely, let's say 2/3 of these aren't genuine. That's still around 45 players that we SHOULD be attempting to retain but simply aren't. Why?
Well how do you convince a Private that participating in a long peacetime, building FOBs is worth their time to contribute to potential warfunds that even they themselves can't use? How do you convince a Private that YOUR server is better off playing than others.
In my eyes, the Unique Player count shows that MRP is in a salvageable state, even if it's been looking under the weather lately.
Realistically, you want to look at the New Player Experience.
What can we do to improve it?
First off, you need to make it entirely clear what the goal of the game mode Military Roleplay is. As far as it stands, there's more talk about Combat in the Trainee room than there is actual Roleplay and what they need to do to be a better soldier, so how is it that it always comes around that there's no one that wants to roleplay/incentive roleplay if the very first thing they see on the server is WAR WAR WAR. Then, when there's suggestions to change war, fix war or increase the frequency of war, we deny it on the principle that it's not in the interest of a Roleplay server.
So we add more information about what they're meant to do, how they join a regiment, HOW the Infantry system works, when they can join a regiment. Great. Next, you need to make the new player experience more enjoyable and rewarding at first and build up to the blocks where they have to wait such as promotions, when they're established into a regiment. We need to get rid of the Promotion cooldown for newly recruited Trainees. It's damaging, and the only thing that I disagree with about the Infantry update. If someone is playing for 6 hours on the server, knows how it works etc. then why are we not incentived to get them into a regiment straight away, where they can build them valuable connections with people to make them think "you know what, this guys pretty cool I might rejoin the server to speak with him again". It's why whole reason that Isaf had numbers. It wasn't because they were the best regiment, or had the greatest weapons. It was literally because everyone was homies, chilling and just vibing playing a game where they had people like themselves that just wanted to chill with others. Remove the promotion cooldowns for privates, let's get it incentivised to promote them once they understand the server and then Special Forces and RMP (which realistically is the main regiments that the cooldown is there for) can make their own decisions on whether to let the Privates into their regiment of if they want to see a little bit more from them. Privates don't want to have a cooldown just to join a regiment, TO THEN have a cooldown once they join the regiment AND then go back down to Private, it seems to ridiculously backwards??
So far, we've updated the Trainee room to have more Roleplay, server progression based questions and incentive's towards Privates building those important connections to people in the regiment.
We need to give them something to work towards that isn't building war funds. This (partly) should be 'smoothened' by the Campaign system as the whole progression is towards a base raid which gives them a lot of money, XP for winning as well as server achievements which will be nice however, we need to make XP have a bigger influence.
Let's be honest, you're not living long enough during a war to use your entire stamina bar and even if you are, it just slowly starts to reset over time.
Make the Private Contractor and 'some' other Civillian jobs based on Total Level. This follows SCP's successful style of requiring XP to join regiments AND to play certain jobs. Sure, they can still either 'refer' or Donate via VIP however, I think that giving them access to a whole new style upon reaching total rank X would be really cool, especially when all the current players would likely already have access to the job, it just helps them have something to look forward to.
Furthermore, I think we should add Unique rewards to certain BIG mastery ranks. So for example, mastery 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 etc. Right now, I think the only actual additional thing you get 'extra' is the one extra grenade slot. Why not incorporate a Nice looking UI which lets you see what you can unlock in the Future as well as add unique rewards such as a Skin Crate or Knife Crate upon reaching LVL X. It's just something to look into, again. Making an actual progression system where you can see what your XP is going towards would be really cool, especially from a new player point of view where they don't really get an explanation as to what XP does.
I'll put an example Image BELOW of what I mean.
Finally, and this is one for Server Leadership, High Command and Regimental Commanders
Stop giving people ranks just because they're old players. This one is VERY hypocritical and an example of why it sucks.
When I was SGT or something in SWB, I was instantly rank skipped to CPT in Shock Army, granted it was in a TERRIBLE situation of it having 11 whole members you don't feel like you earned the rank and regardless, it puts such a bad example on the lower ranks where you've just sky rocketed above them and took their time towards ranking up in that regiment and shoved it down the drain. Fair enough, there ARE examples of 'good' rank skips, 90% of the time it just demotivates lower ranks from playing as well as just because you're an old player, you shouldn't get special treatment.
Same way that instantly promoting someone off cooldown 'can' be a good thing, it shouldn't be an every promotion type thing. If it gets a consistent thing, people expect a promotion and then aren't happy when they don't receive one OR again, become demotivated. If someone is actively helping the regiment more than another person, why should they both be promoted at the same time?
Give ranks meaning again... This one is literally only up to regimental command and high command however it NEEDS doing to be honest. You can't respect the person in a high position if you can't even respect the rank.
Also, I think a questionnaire for unique players should appear after 2 hours where they can complete it for $ or leave it where they can leave feedback on what they like, want or don't understand.
Has something similar been suggested before? If so, why is your suggestion different?:
Probably not
Possible Positives of the suggestion (At least 2):
New players are the life of the server, the only reason the server isn't on its knees yet is because old returning players keep coming back. What's the point having a high rank if you have no one to roleplay with? A CO can't command with no men. A high command can't command with no army.
Possible Negatives of the suggestion:
Realistically, the only negative would be the PC being introduced to Referrals OR Mastery as well as giving Knife Crates and increased money from Mastery.
Based on the Positives & Negatives, why should this suggestion be accepted:
I think we really need to get a hold of the current issue. The last week, we're barely peaking over 40 players and I just can't see the lack of action by Server Leadership justified. Take initiative, run money roulette's, run XP roulettes, get a questionnaire out for the players for actual constructive feedback, ask for another town hall, see if we can have a questionnaire for new players to answer once they reach 2 hours playtime where if they complete it (min words), they receive something in return.
I don't know what's being said from Server Leadership and it's a very fair observation that maybe they're keeping track of the issues with MRP and maybe they're planning on how to fix it. But right now, from a player side and point of view, we're being neglected and it shouldn't take people like myself coming forward to bitch and moan about these concurrent issues for something to be done.
You see us complaining in mess hall but don't give us any comfort in that you're trying. You see these suggestions we're making but it never ends up going anywhere. Give us some clarity, something to hold onto because you're all good people up there. I don't dislike any of you, you're in your position for a reason and you've earned it. All we're asking for is help.
Improves Mastery or at least changes it to have a deeper meaning within MRP. Realistically, we need a new system or to change the current system to allow for a real meaningful reason to build up XP in your mastery tree to make it some what beneficial to Grind the current content that we have in the server as well as looks at the new/previous player experience and how it can be improved (ranks, meanings and improvements)
As it stands right now, you join the server, get trained, join the USSR Infantry/NATO Infantry regiments and then... that's it. There realistically is no progressive gain or incentive for new players to continue to play the server UNLESS there's a war active as they join, in which they likely won't be trained because that's what it's become. The fix ISNT making sure they're being trained during war, it's giving them something to progress towards even when war isn't active, or there's not people on the server.
Our player retention is fucking abysmal to be quite honest. Using Battlemetrics, we received a total of around 140 new players between October 6th and October 21st. Despite it being high, that number may be slightly off, if not completely, let's say 2/3 of these aren't genuine. That's still around 45 players that we SHOULD be attempting to retain but simply aren't. Why?
Well how do you convince a Private that participating in a long peacetime, building FOBs is worth their time to contribute to potential warfunds that even they themselves can't use? How do you convince a Private that YOUR server is better off playing than others.
In my eyes, the Unique Player count shows that MRP is in a salvageable state, even if it's been looking under the weather lately.
Realistically, you want to look at the New Player Experience.
What can we do to improve it?
First off, you need to make it entirely clear what the goal of the game mode Military Roleplay is. As far as it stands, there's more talk about Combat in the Trainee room than there is actual Roleplay and what they need to do to be a better soldier, so how is it that it always comes around that there's no one that wants to roleplay/incentive roleplay if the very first thing they see on the server is WAR WAR WAR. Then, when there's suggestions to change war, fix war or increase the frequency of war, we deny it on the principle that it's not in the interest of a Roleplay server.
So we add more information about what they're meant to do, how they join a regiment, HOW the Infantry system works, when they can join a regiment. Great. Next, you need to make the new player experience more enjoyable and rewarding at first and build up to the blocks where they have to wait such as promotions, when they're established into a regiment. We need to get rid of the Promotion cooldown for newly recruited Trainees. It's damaging, and the only thing that I disagree with about the Infantry update. If someone is playing for 6 hours on the server, knows how it works etc. then why are we not incentived to get them into a regiment straight away, where they can build them valuable connections with people to make them think "you know what, this guys pretty cool I might rejoin the server to speak with him again". It's why whole reason that Isaf had numbers. It wasn't because they were the best regiment, or had the greatest weapons. It was literally because everyone was homies, chilling and just vibing playing a game where they had people like themselves that just wanted to chill with others. Remove the promotion cooldowns for privates, let's get it incentivised to promote them once they understand the server and then Special Forces and RMP (which realistically is the main regiments that the cooldown is there for) can make their own decisions on whether to let the Privates into their regiment of if they want to see a little bit more from them. Privates don't want to have a cooldown just to join a regiment, TO THEN have a cooldown once they join the regiment AND then go back down to Private, it seems to ridiculously backwards??
So far, we've updated the Trainee room to have more Roleplay, server progression based questions and incentive's towards Privates building those important connections to people in the regiment.
We need to give them something to work towards that isn't building war funds. This (partly) should be 'smoothened' by the Campaign system as the whole progression is towards a base raid which gives them a lot of money, XP for winning as well as server achievements which will be nice however, we need to make XP have a bigger influence.
Let's be honest, you're not living long enough during a war to use your entire stamina bar and even if you are, it just slowly starts to reset over time.
Make the Private Contractor and 'some' other Civillian jobs based on Total Level. This follows SCP's successful style of requiring XP to join regiments AND to play certain jobs. Sure, they can still either 'refer' or Donate via VIP however, I think that giving them access to a whole new style upon reaching total rank X would be really cool, especially when all the current players would likely already have access to the job, it just helps them have something to look forward to.
Furthermore, I think we should add Unique rewards to certain BIG mastery ranks. So for example, mastery 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 etc. Right now, I think the only actual additional thing you get 'extra' is the one extra grenade slot. Why not incorporate a Nice looking UI which lets you see what you can unlock in the Future as well as add unique rewards such as a Skin Crate or Knife Crate upon reaching LVL X. It's just something to look into, again. Making an actual progression system where you can see what your XP is going towards would be really cool, especially from a new player point of view where they don't really get an explanation as to what XP does.
I'll put an example Image BELOW of what I mean.
Finally, and this is one for Server Leadership, High Command and Regimental Commanders
Stop giving people ranks just because they're old players. This one is VERY hypocritical and an example of why it sucks.
When I was SGT or something in SWB, I was instantly rank skipped to CPT in Shock Army, granted it was in a TERRIBLE situation of it having 11 whole members you don't feel like you earned the rank and regardless, it puts such a bad example on the lower ranks where you've just sky rocketed above them and took their time towards ranking up in that regiment and shoved it down the drain. Fair enough, there ARE examples of 'good' rank skips, 90% of the time it just demotivates lower ranks from playing as well as just because you're an old player, you shouldn't get special treatment.
Same way that instantly promoting someone off cooldown 'can' be a good thing, it shouldn't be an every promotion type thing. If it gets a consistent thing, people expect a promotion and then aren't happy when they don't receive one OR again, become demotivated. If someone is actively helping the regiment more than another person, why should they both be promoted at the same time?
Give ranks meaning again... This one is literally only up to regimental command and high command however it NEEDS doing to be honest. You can't respect the person in a high position if you can't even respect the rank.
Also, I think a questionnaire for unique players should appear after 2 hours where they can complete it for $ or leave it where they can leave feedback on what they like, want or don't understand.
Has something similar been suggested before? If so, why is your suggestion different?:
Probably not
Possible Positives of the suggestion (At least 2):
New players are the life of the server, the only reason the server isn't on its knees yet is because old returning players keep coming back. What's the point having a high rank if you have no one to roleplay with? A CO can't command with no men. A high command can't command with no army.
Possible Negatives of the suggestion:
Realistically, the only negative would be the PC being introduced to Referrals OR Mastery as well as giving Knife Crates and increased money from Mastery.
Based on the Positives & Negatives, why should this suggestion be accepted:
I think we really need to get a hold of the current issue. The last week, we're barely peaking over 40 players and I just can't see the lack of action by Server Leadership justified. Take initiative, run money roulette's, run XP roulettes, get a questionnaire out for the players for actual constructive feedback, ask for another town hall, see if we can have a questionnaire for new players to answer once they reach 2 hours playtime where if they complete it (min words), they receive something in return.
I don't know what's being said from Server Leadership and it's a very fair observation that maybe they're keeping track of the issues with MRP and maybe they're planning on how to fix it. But right now, from a player side and point of view, we're being neglected and it shouldn't take people like myself coming forward to bitch and moan about these concurrent issues for something to be done.
You see us complaining in mess hall but don't give us any comfort in that you're trying. You see these suggestions we're making but it never ends up going anywhere. Give us some clarity, something to hold onto because you're all good people up there. I don't dislike any of you, you're in your position for a reason and you've earned it. All we're asking for is help.